Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-11-12

he had been gonel" and she burst into an
awful food OF tears, sobbing rs though her
heart would break, and yet managing tc
look ~lovelier than ever, as she did it. Al
last she ceased.
Forgive me. my Holly-forgive me for
my weakness" she said. Thou seest. af.
ter all, ! am n very woman. Think-now
think Of il. This morning didst thou speak
OF the Mace OF torment appointed by this
new religion Of thine. He'll or Hades thou
uldst call it-a place where the vital es.
sence lives and retains an individual mem
Dry, and where all the errors and faults OF
judgment and unsatisfied passions and the
unsubstantial terrors of the mind where
with it hath at any time had to come to
mock and haunt and gibe and wiring the
heart forever and forever with the vision
of its wv hopelessness. Thus, even thus.
have | lived for tive thousand years-for
some sixty generations, as we reckon time
in n He'll. as thou callest it--tormented
by the memory OF a crime, tortured day
and night with an unfulilled desire-with-
out companionship, without comfort, with
out death, and led on only down my dreary
road by the marsh lights of Hope, which,
though they flickered here and there, and
now glowed strong, and now were not, yet,
as my skill told me, would one day lead
unto my deliverer.
and then-think Of it still, oh, Holly,
for never shalt thou kear such another
tale, or see such another scene, nay, not
even If ! give tlHe ten thousand years OF
life-and thou shalt nave it in payment II
thou wilt-think; ut last my deliverer came
he whom l had watched and waited for
through the generations-at the appointed
time he came to seek me, as / knew he
must come, for my wisdom could not err
though j knew not when or how. Yet
see how ignorant | was, See how small
my knowledge and how faint my strength
Fol- hours he lay here sick unto death, and
/ felt it mott who had waited for him fol
two thousand years. knew it not. And
then at last | see him, and behold, my
chance is gone but by a hair's-breadth
even before | had 1t, for he is in the very
jaws of death, whence no power of mine
can draw him. And if he die, surely must
the hell be lived through once more-once
more must | face the weary centuries, and
wait and wait till time in its fullness shall
bring my beloved back TO me. And then
thou gayest him the medicine, and that
NV ~ Ah@SN aAbiAl bNipiN u hliNh
if he would live or die, and ! tell thee that
all the sixty generations that are gone
were not SO long as that five minutes. But
they passed at last, and still lie showed no
sign, and | knew that if the drug works
not then, it, so far as nave had knowledge,
works not at all. Then thought | that he
was once more dead, and all the tortures
Of all the years gathered themselves into a
single venomed spear, and pierced mo
through and through, because once again
| had lost Kallikrates! And then, when
all was done, behold! he sighed, behold! he
lived, and / knew that he would live, for
none die on whom the drug takes hold,
Think Of it now, my H~olly-think of the
wonder of 1t! He will sleep for twelve
hours, and then the fever will have left
him.
And she stopped and laid her hand upon
the golden head, and then bent down and
kissed the brow with a chastened abandon
ment of tenderness that would have been
beautiful to behold had not the sight cut
me to the heart-for I was jealous!